nacles. For a grim stranger, Grendel, a mighty haunter of the marshes,' had entered his hall during the night, seized thirty of the thanes who were asleep, and returned in his war-craft with their carcasses; for twelve years the dreadful ogre, the beastly and greedy creature, father of Orks and Jötuns, devoured men and emptied the best of houses. Beowulf, the great warrior, offers to grapple with the fiend, and foe to foe contend for life, without the bearing of either sword or ample shield, for he has 'learned also that the wretch for his cursed hide recketh not of weapons,' asking only that if death takes him, they will bear forth his bloody corpse and bury it; mark his fendwelling; send to Hygelác, his chief, the best of war-shrouds that guards his breast.

He is lying in the hall, 'trusting in his proud strength; and when the mists of night arose, lo, Grendel comes, tears open the door,' seized a sleeping warrior: 'he tore him unawares, he bit his body, he drank the blood from the veins, he swallowed him with continual tearings.' Beowulf seized him in turn, and 'raised himself upon his elbow.'

But

"The lordly hall thundered, the ale was spilled. . both were enraged; savage and strong warders; the house resounded; then was it a great wonder that the wine-hall withstood the beasts of war, that it fell not upon the earth, the fair palace; but it was thus fast. . . . The noise arose, new enough; a fearful terror fell on the North Danes, on each of those who from the wall heard the outcry, God's denier sing his dreadful lay, his song of defeat, lament his wound.1 The foul wretch awaited the mortal wound; a mighty gash was evident upon his shoulder; the sinews sprung asunder, the junctures of the bones burst; success in war was given to Beowulf. Thence must Grendel fly sick unto death, among the refuges of the fens, to seek his joyless dwelling. He all the better knew that the end of his life, the number of his days was gone by.'2

For he had left on the land, 'hand, arm, and shoulder;' and 'in the lake of Nicors, where he was driven, the rough wave was boiling with blood, the foul spring of waves all mingled, hot with poison; the dye, discoloured with death, bubbled with warlike gore.' There remained a female monster, his mother, who like him was doomed to inhabit the terror of waters, the cold streams,' who came by night, and amidst drawn swords tore and devoured another man, Æschere, the king's best friend. A lamentation arose in the palace, and Beowulf offered himself again. They went to the den, a hidden land, the refuge of the wolf, near the windy promontories, where a mountain stream rusheth downwards under the darkness of the hills, a flood beneath the earth; the wood fast by its roots overshadoweth the water; there may one by night behold a marvel, fire upon the flood: the stepper over the heath, when wearied out by the hounds, sooner will give up his soul, his life upon the brink, than plunge therein to hide his head. Strange dragons and serpents swam there; 'from time to time the horn sang a dirge, a 2 Ibid. xii. p. 34.

'Kemble's Beowulf, xi. p. 32.

terrible song.' Beowulf plunged into the wave, descended, passed monsters who tore his coat of mail, to the ogress, the hateful manslayer, who, seizing him in her grasp, bore him off to her dwelling. A pale gleam shone brightly, and there, face to face, the good champion perceived 'the she-wolf of the abyss, the mighty sea-woman; he gave the war-onset with his battle-bill; he held not back the swing of the sword, so that on her head the ring-mail sang aloud a greedy war-song. The beam of war would not bite. Then he caught the Grendel's mother by the shoulder; twisted the homicide, that she bent upon the floor. . . . She drew her knife broad, brown-edged, (and tried to pierce) the twisted breast-net which protected his life. . . . Then saw he among the weapons a bill fortunate with victory, an old gigantic sword, doughty of edge, ready for use, a work of giants. He seized the belted hilt; the warrior of the Scyldings, fierce and savage whirled the ring-mail; despairing of life, he struck furiously, so that it grappled hard with her about her neck; it broke the bonerings, the bill passed through all the doomed body; she sank upon the floor; the sword was bloody, the man rejoiced in his deed; the beam shone, light stood within, even as from heaven mildly shines the lamp of the firmament.'1

...

Then he saw Grendel dead in a corner of the hall; and four of his companions, having with difficulty raised the monstrous head, bore it by the hair to the palace of the king.

That was his first labour; and the rest of his life was similar. When he had reigned fifty years on earth, a dragon, who had been robbed of his treasure, came from the hill and burned men and houses with waves of fire.'

6

'Then did the refuge of earls command to make for him a variegated shield, all of iron; he knew that a shield of wood could not help him, lindenwood opposed to fire. . . . The prince of rings was then too proud to seek the wide flier with a troop, with a large company; he feared not for himself that battle, nor did he make any account of the dragon's war, his laboriousness and valour.'

And yet he was sad, and went unwillingly, for he was 'fated to abide the end.' Then

'he was ware of a cavern, a mound under the earth, nigh to the sea-wave, the dashing of waters, which was full within of embossed ornaments and wires. . . . Then the king, hard in war, sat upon the promontory, and bade farewell to his household comrades. I, the old guardian of my people, seek a feud.' He let words proceed from his heart, the dragon came, vomiting fire; the blade bit not his body, and the king suffered painfully, involved in fire. His comrades had turned into the woods, all save Wiglaf, who went through the fatal smoke, knowing well that it was not the old custom' to abandon relation and prince, that he alone shall suffer distress, shall sink in battle.'

เ

'The worm became furious, the foul insidious stranger, variegated with waves of fire, . . hot and warlike fierce, he clutched the whole neck with bitter banes; he was bloodied with life-gore, the blood boiled in waves.

12

1 Beowulf, xxii., xxiii., p. 62 et passim.

2 Ibid. xxxiii.-xxxvi., p. 94 et passim.

They, with their swords, carved the worm in the midst. Yet the wound of the king became burning and swelled; he soon discovered that the poison boiled in his breast within, and sat by the wall upon a stone; he looked upon the work of giants, how the eternal cavern held within stone arches fast upon pillars.'

...

Then he said, 'I have held this people fifty years; there was not any king of my neighbours who dared to greet me with warriors, to oppress me with terror. I held mine own well, I sought not treacherous malice, nor swore unjustly many oaths; on account of all this, I, sick with mortal wounds, may have joy. Now do thou go immediately to behold the hoard under the hoary stone, my dear Wiglaf. . . . Now, I have purchased with my death a hoard of treasures; it will be yet of advantage at the need of my people. . . . I give thanks . . . that I might before my dying day obtain such for my people . . . longer may I not here be.'1

...

This is thorough and real generosity, not exaggerated and pretended, as it will be later on in the romantic imaginations of babbling clerics, mere composers of adventure. Fiction as yet is not far removed from fact: the man breathes manifest under the hero. Rude as the poetry is, its hero is grand; he is so, simply by his deeds. Faithful, first to his prince, then to his people, he went alone, in a strange land, to venture himself for the delivery of his fellow-men; he forgets himself in death, while thinking only that it profits others. Each one of us,' he says in one place, 'must abide the end of his present life.' Let, therefore, each do justice, if he can, before his death. Compare with him the monsters whom he destroys, the last traditions of the ancient wars against inferior races, and of the primitive religion; think of his life of danger, nights upon the waves, man's efforts against the brute creation, the indomitable breast crushing the breasts of beasts, powerful muscles which, when exerted, tear the flesh of the monsters: you will see through the mist of legends, and under the light of poetry, the valiant men who, amid the furies of war and the raging of their own mood, began to settle a people and to found a state.

V.

One poem nearly whole and two or three fragments are all that remain of this lay-poetry of England. The rest of the pagan current, German and barbarian, was arrested or overwhelmed, first by the influx of the Christian religion, then by the conquest of the Norman-French. But the remnant more than suffices to show the strange and powerful poetic genius of the race, and to exhibit beforehand the flower in the bud.

If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic sentiment, it is here. They do not speak, they sing, or rather cry out. Each little verse is an acclamation, which breaks forth like a growl; their strong breasts heave with a groan of anger or enthusiasm, and a vehement phrase or indistinct expression rises suddenly, almost in spite

1 Beowulf, xxxvii., xxxviii., p. 110 et passim. I have throughout always used the very words of Kemble's translation.-TR.

The

of them, to their lips. There is no art, no natural talent, for describing singly and in order the different parts of an object or an event. fifty rays of light which every phenomenon emits in succession to a regular and well-directed intellect, come to them at once in a glowing and confused beam, disabling them by their force and convergence. Listen to their genuine war-chants, unchecked and violent, as became their terrible voices. To this day, at this distance of time, separated as they are by manners, speech, ten centuries, we seem to hear them still:—

'The army goes forth: the birds sing, the cricket chirps, the war-weapons sound, the lance clangs against the shield. Now shineth the moon, wandering under the sky. Now arise deeds of woe, which the enmity of this people prepares to do. Then in the court came the tumult of war-carnage. They seized with their hands the hollow wood of the shield. They smote through the bones of the head. The roofs of the castle resounded, until Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-dwelling men, son of Guthlaf. Around him lay many brave men dying. The raven whirled about, dark and sombre, like a willow leaf. There was a sparkling of blades, as if all Finsburg were on fire. Never have I heard of a more worthy battle in war.

'1

This is the song on Athelstan's victory at Brunanburh:

'Here Athelstan king, of earls the lord, the giver of the bracelets of the nobles, and his brother also, Edmund the ætheling, the Elder a lasting glory won by slaughter in battle, with the edges of swords, at Brunan burh. The wall of shields they cleaved, they hewed the noble banners: with the rest of the family, the children of Edward. . . . Pursuing, they destroyed the Scottish people and the ship-fleet. . . . The field was coloured with the warrior's blood! After that the sun on high, . . . the greatest star! glided over the earth, God's candle bright! till the noble creature hastened to her setting. There lay soldiers many with darts struck down, Northern men over their shields shot. So were the Scotch; weary of ruddy battle. . . . The screamers of war they left behind; the raven to enjoy, the dismal kite, and the black raven with horned beak, and the hoarse toad; the eagle, afterwards to feast on the white flesh; the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey beast, the wolf in the wood. '2

6

Here all is image. In their impassioned minds events are not bald, with the dry propriety of an exact description; each fits in with its pomp of sound, shape, colouring; it is almost a vision which is raised, complete, with its accompanying emotions, joy, fury, excitement. In their speech, arrows are the serpents of Hel, shot from bows of horn;' ships are great sea-steeds,' the sea is 'a chalice of waves,' the helmet is the castle of the head:' they need an extraordinary speech to express their vehement sensations, so that after a time, in Iceland, when this kind of poetry is carried on, the earlier inspiration fails, art replaces nature, the Skalds are reduced to a distorted and obscure jargon. But whatever be the imagery, here as in Iceland, though unique, it is

1 Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 1826, Battle of Finsborough, p. 175. The complete collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry has been published by M. Grein. 2 Turner, Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, iii., book 9, ch. i. p. 245.

too feeble. The poets cannot satisfy the inner emotion by a single word. Time after time they return to and repeat their idea. 'The sun on high, the great star, God's brilliant candle, the noble creature!' Four subsequent times they employ the same thought, and each time under a new aspect. All its different aspects rise simultaneously before the barbarian's eyes, and each word was like a shock of the semihallucination which excited him. Verily, in such a condition, the regularity of speech and of ideas is disturbed at every turn. The succession of thought in the visionary is not the same as in a reasoning mind. One colour induces another; from sound he passes to sound; his imagination is like a diorama of unexplained pictures. His phrases recur and change; he emits the word that comes to his lips without hesitation; he leaps over wide intervals from idea to idea. The more his mind is transported, the quicker and wider the intervals traversed. With one spring he visits the poles of his horizon, and touches in one moment objects which seemed to have the world between them. His ideas are entangled; without notice, abruptly, the poet will return to the idea he has quitted, and insert it in the thought to which he is giving expression. It is impossible to translate these incongruous ideas, which quite disconcert our modern style. At times they are unintelligible.1 Articles, particles, everything capable of illuminating thought, of marking the connection of terms, of producing regularity of ideas, all rational and logical artifices, are neglected." Passion bellows forth like a great shapeless beast; and that is all. It rises and starts in little abrupt lines; it is the acme of barbarism. Homer's happy poetry is copiously developed, in full narrative, with rich and extended imagery. All the details of a complete picture are not too much for him; he loves to look at things, he lingers over them, rejoices in their beauty, dresses them in splendid words; he is like the Greek girls, who thought themselves ugly if they did not bedeck arms and shoulders with all the gold coins from their purse, and all the treasures from their caskets; his long verses flow by with their cadences, and spread out like a purple robe under an Ionian sun. Here the clumsy-fingered poet mingles and clashes his ideas in a bold measure; if measure there be, he barely observes it; all his ornament is three words beginning with one letter. His chief care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a kind of mutilated cry. The force of the internal

1 The cleverest Anglo-Saxon scholars, Turner, Conybeare, Thorpe, recognise this difficulty.

* Turner, iii. 231, et passim. The translations in French, however literal, do injustice to the text; that language is too clear, too logical. No Frenchman can understand this extraordinary phase of intellect, except by taking a dictionary, and deciphering some pages of Anglo-Saxon for a fortnight.

1 Turner remarks that the same idea expressed by King Alfred, in prose and then in verse, takes in the first case seven words, in the second five. History of the Anglo-Saxons, iii. 235.